The new movie The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg is a contender — but it’s got lots of competition from these memorable flicks.

A "ghost player" in a vintage Chicago White Sox baseball uniform emerges from a cornfield as he re-enacts the scene at the baseball field created for the motion picture 'Field of Dreams' on August 25, 1991 in Dyersville, Iowa.

Amid the pantheon of sports films, The Fighter now steps into the ring.

The boxing drama based on the lives of battling half brothers “Irish” Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) is drawing positive early reviews and Oscar buzz for Bale’s performance.

The film appears to have all the elements of a good sports drama, including a plucky and endearing underdog in Ward. There’s also a lot of family ties dragging Ward down, including the troubled brother Eklund, who has blown his big chance and might do the same for his brother, too.

But it’s got a lot of competition if it wants to fight its way into the greatest sports movies of all-time. We picked our favourites, click here to watch movie clips, and then vote for your favourite in our poll, posted on the right-hand side of this page.

This 1971 made-for-TV classic pulled the heartstrings just right in telling the real-life story of a friendship that overcame racial barriers between Chicago running back Brian Piccolo (James Caan before The Godfather), stricken with terminal cancer, and the team’s star Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams). As Bob Costas put it: “You don’t know how many guys who ordinarily would be loath to admit that they shed a tear, will tell you at the drop of a hat, I still cry every time I see Brian’s Song.” It was based on a book written by Sayers.

Robert De Niro reportedly convinced director Martin Scorcese to make this unflinching biopic of middleweight champion Jake La Motta, relentless inside the ring and out. Not only did De Niro put himself through tough training to portray La Motta the boxer, he equally let himself go to portray the slothful post-boxing La Motta in a role that brough an Oscar. At least they didn’t use real blood in the brutal fight scenes filmed in black and white – it was Hershey’s dark chocolate.

This movie’s made by brilliant performances by Anthony Quinn as “Mountain” Rivera, a broken down heavyweight at the end of his career, Jackie Gleason as his conniving trainer and Mickey Rooney as his loyal manager. In a foreshadowing of his own demise, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) knocks out an overmatched Rivera to start the film. The original screenplay was written for television by Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame, who himself was an experienced boxer.

This great classic doesn't focus on Yankee legend Lou Gehrig’s baseball heroics, but rather takes the full measure of an extraordinary man. Gary Cooper was tailor-made for the leading role, save for his right-handed hitting stance -- Gehrig hit from his left side. The editors fixed that by reversing the film on the batting scenes so the right-handed hitting Cooper would be seen hitting from his left. His farewell speech at Yankee Stadium after contract amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – the fatal nerve disease which bears his name – was abbreviated for the film but contains the famous line: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Paul Newman had a lot of incredible roles in his career, but endeared himself forever to hockey fans as Reggie Dunlop, the journeyman player coach on the Charlestown Chiefs of the Federal League. Who cares that Newman couldn't skate a lick in real life. He looked like the real deal on the bench and in the dressing room. The Hanson brothers are in many ways the real stars of the film – all real hockey players – and the scene of them playing with their toy cars in their hotel room is a classic. Canadian actor Michael Ontkean is terrific as Ned Braden, the one player who might have a legitimate shot at the big time. Characters like Dave “Killer” Carlson, Ogie Ogilthorphe and Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken were classic. Watch for Washington coach Bruce Boudreau in a small role. Newman said it was the most fun he had making a film. It showed.

You’ve got to wonder where the Maple Leafs would be with coach like Norman Dale, a fiery taskmaster played in this 1986 classic by Gene Hackman. Of course, Dale had Dennis Hopper as an assistant coach, a basketball fanatic named Shooter who also happens to be the town drunk and have a kid on the team. Once again the underdog theme is big here. The town of Hickory is a speck in the basketball crazy Hoosier country of Indiana and barely have enough players to field a squad. Hackman has a lot to prove as he was fired from his last job for hitting a student. It’s based on the story of the 1954 Milan High School team, a small and unheralded group of players which took the state championship.

“If you build it, he will come,” a voice tells Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner). The neighbours thinks Kinsella has lost it when he turns his cornfield into a baseball diamond, but hey it's not every day you get the chance to watch the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson and other dear departed greats of the past patrol the outfield. This favourite adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe resonated with everyone, not just baseball fans. Such was the fascination with the film that the ball field built in Dyersville, Iowa, for the filming remains a tourist attraction, although it was put up for sale this year, causing concern the tradition may not continue. If you take it down ...

Sylvester Stallone looked the part of a down-and-out Philly club fighter in this film, a true underdog, a role that wasn't a stretch for him to play given the battle he had to go through as a Hollywood outsider to get the film made. He's great in the role and supported by a superb cast, including his grizzled trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), wallflower girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire), her ne'er do well brother Paulie (Burt Young), who lets him flail away on the meat carcasses at the plant where he works, and his nemesis Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), who gives him his big shot. Stallone was inspired to make the movie by the Muhammad Ali-Chuck Wepner fight. Wepner was an underdog who lasted 15 rounds with the legendary champ. Not Stallone's physique compared to the later Rocky films. This was before he got carried away with human growth hormone.

Bike racing is the vehicle for this coming of age flick. Dave (Dennis Christopher) is fanatical about Italian cyclists and everything Italian and pretends to be an Italian exchange student. He and his buddies – Dennis Quaid as Mike, Daniel Stern as Cyril and Jackie Earle Haley of Bad News Bears fame – are outsiders in their Indiana community, working class kids derided as “cutters” because their families earned their living as stonecutters. The boys form their own bike team to take on the fancy pants Indiana University students in the annual Little 500 race and, well, you can imagine the rest. Don't just take our word for its value. It was voted No. 8 among the American Film Institute’s Top 10 sports movies.

This incredible documentary started out as a 30-minute PBS show and wound up as a 171-minute epic that won the hearts of moviegoers and critics. It follows a pair of 14-year-olds, Arthur Agee and William Gates, who dream of escaping inner city Chicago to play one day in the NBA. The filmmakers led by director Steve James recorded over 250 hours of footage over five years. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both voted it their best film of 1994. Writing of the film last year, Ebert remarked “No other documentary has ever touched me more deeply. It was relevant then, and today, as inner city neighbourhoods sink deeper into the despair of children murdering children, it is more relevant.” That's probably why the Library of Congress chose to add it to its National Film Registry.

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